@person89 Putting yourself in position to get significant merit aid takes work and is a process. Here’s my advice: Start by looking at the College rankings posted in the USNews&World Report (2019 edition) (at Barnes and Noble or online) to get an idea of the colleges you want and then do research on those that have the academic programs and demographics that interest you. Look also at Fiskes Guide to Colleges and Princeton Review’s Beat 384 Colleges book (2019 edition) as they will help you get a target list of schools. Then go into the specific college/university website and write down the criteria for merit aid scholarships and the amount and quantity of merit aid scholarships offered for that particular school. Some schools are very specific while others hide behind “holistic review.”
Once you have a target list of schools you should register on their website as a way to show interest and show interest throughout the application cycle as many schools give merit aid to those students who show them serious interest. Visit as many colleges of interest as you can or at least go to local events they hold in your high school or geographic area.
If you want a top 20 or 40 liberal arts college, you may get at most $20,000 or $25,000 (but that’s not at all easy to get) which would being your cost of attendance down per year from $72,000 to $52,000 or maybe the high $40,000 range.
For HYPS and the top 20 national universities you won’t likely get any merit aid, because every accepted student has top stats—however Duke and Vamderbilt and a few others offer some full tuition scholarships, but again, not at all easy. As you move down to the top 40 to 100 ranked national universities, including both out-of-state public’s and private universities, you are looking at more and higher merit aid…including full tuition scholarships, so you should research each school and see what is needed —some require separate applications for the scholarships.
And keep in mind that many of the outofstate public’s have tuition for out-of-state students in the $25,000 to 40,000 range (as opppsed to the much higher private college tuition range of $50,000 to $58,000 range), so merit aid will go a lot further in reducing the total cost of attendance at those out-of-state public universities making them comparable to your in-state Maryland options. You will need to know what cost of attendance your family could afford in order to help you select your target list of schools.
Finally check out this thread on schools that offer large merit aid. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/2133763-schools-with-merit-aid-full-rides.html There are also many other threads about merit aid like this on Cc so check them out in the search bar under latest posts.